Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 04.djvu/326

 then, and her Muscadins and Money-changers that we fought? It was for Balls in flesh-coloured drawers that we took Feudalism by the beard, and did and dared, shedding our blood like water? Expressive Silence, muse thou their praise!—

Carrier went to the Guillotine, in December last; protesting that he acted by orders. The Revolutionary Tribunal, after all it has devoured, has now only, as Anarchic things do, to devour itself. In the early days of May, men see a remarkable thing: Fouquier-Tinville pleading at the Bar once his own. He and his chief Jurymen, Leroi August-Tenth, Juryman Vilate, a Batch of Sixteen; pleading hard, protesting that they acted by orders: but pleading in vain. Thus men break the axe with which they have done hateful things; the axe itself having grown hateful. For the rest, Fouquier died hard enough: 'Where are thy Batches?' howled the people.—'Hungry canaille,' asked Fouquier, 'is thy Bread cheaper, wanting them?'

Remarkable Fouquier; once but as other Attorneys and Law-beagles, which hunt ravenous on this Earth, a well-known phasis of human nature; and now thou art and remainest the most remarkable Attorney that ever lived and hunted in the Upper Air! For, in this terrestrial Course of Time, there was to be an Avatar of Attorneyism; the Heavens had said. Let there be an Incarnation, not divine, of the venatory Attorney-spirit which keeps its eye on the bond only;—and lo, this was it; and they have attorneyed it in its turn. Vanish, then, thou rat-eyed Incarnation of Attorneyism; who at bottom wert but as other Attorneys, and too hungry sons of Adam! Juryman Vilate had striven hard for life, and published, from his Prison, an ingenious Book, not unknown